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In the present paper, we show that many combinatorial and topological objects, such as maps, hypermaps, three-dimensional pavings, constellations and branched coverings of the two-sphere admit any given finite automorphism group. This enhances the already known results by Frucht, Cori -Machì,Širáň -Škoviera, and other authors. We also provide a more universal technique for showing that "any finite automorphism group is possible", that is applicable to wider classes or, in contrast, to more particular sub-classes of said combinatorial and geometric objects. Finally, we show that any given finite automorphism group can be realised by sufficiently many non-isomorphic such entities (superexponentially many with respect to a certain combinatorial complexity measure).

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In this paper we derive a generating series for the number of cellular complexes known as pavings or three-dimensional maps, on n darts, thus solving an analogue of Tutte’s problem in dimension three. The generating series we derive also counts free subgroups of index n in $$\Delta ^+ = {\mathbb {Z}}_2*{\mathbb {Z}}_2*{\mathbb {Z}}_2$$ Δ + = Z 2 ∗ Z 2 ∗ Z 2 via a simple bijection between pavings and finite index subgroups which can be deduced from the action of $$\Delta ^+$$ Δ + on the cosets of a given subgroup. We then show that this generating series is non-holonomic. Furthermore, we provide and study the generating series for isomorphism classes of pavings, which correspond to conjugacy classes of free subgroups of finite index in $$\Delta ^+$$ Δ + . Computational experiments performed with software designed by the authors provide some statistics about the topology and combinatorics of pavings on $$n\le 16$$ n ≤ 16 darts.